Tanzania: grip tightens around opposition as presidential election approaches

Pressure is mounting around Tanzanian opposition figures as presential and legislative elections approach.

A Tanzanian court on Monday confirmed that the treason trial against opposition leader Tundu Lissu will go ahead. Judges rejected an appeal from Lissu's team to dismiss his case over procedural flaws. 

Lissu was arrested in April following a speech that prosecutors said called on the public to disrupt elections in October.

He has remained in prison ever since. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.  

The high court’s decision to allow Lissu’s trial to proceed is the latest blow to the country’s opposition. In April, Lissu's CHADEMA party, Tanzania’s biggest opposition formation, was also barred from the upcoming elections.

On Monday, the electoral commission disqualified presidential candidate Luhaga Mpina. He leads the Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo), the country’s second largest opposition party. 

The ACT-Wazalendo dismissed the disqualification as "baseless" and politically-motivated. 

The exclusion of Tundu Lissu and Luhaga Mpina effectively leaves incumbent president Samia Suluhu Hassan a clear run at next month’s election, with seemingly only candidates from minor parties allowed to compete. 

Rights groups say the increasing repression against dissidents and opposition figures in recent months point to a government crackdown ahead of the vote. 

In June, human rights experts from the United Nations called on the Tanzanian government to "stop the enforced disappearance of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists, as a tool of repression in the electoral context."

“Curtailing press and media freedom, and intimidating journalists and human rights defenders, is unacceptable. We are alarmed by reports of a pattern of repression in the lead-up to Tanzania’s general election in October,” the experts said.